Interview: Amber Dohrenwend

Amber at work in her home / studio. photo: Yuki Sato

 
Amber Dohrenwend is an educator and self-taught artist who grew up in the US and is now based in Tokyo. We first met Amber through a shared interest in Adventure Playgrounds: open-ended spaces where children shape their own environments using repurposed materials. Amber’s artistic practice – which developed in her small apartment with kids at home, using simple tools and recycled cardboard to make amazing things – feels especially relevant right now, as so many parenting artists find ourselves working to restructure creative time at home with what limited privacy and supplies we can manage.

This interview is the second in a series of conversations organized through Cultural ReProducers Tokyo, thoughtfully conducted by artist, art researcher, curator, and CR Tokyo organizer Catherine Harrington. These conversations explore some of the culturally-specific challenges of working as an artist-parent in Japan, and the fundamental questions we are all working to sort out together.

Cultural ReProducers Tokyo: To start, tell us a bit about you and your daughters.
 
Amber Dohrenwend: I am originally from Michigan in the U.S. and I grew up on a farm there. In 2018, my husband and I moved to Japan. Previously we were working in Egypt and Pakistan. My two daughters were born here (now nearly 8 and 10 years old.) We all have been deeply influenced by our time living in Japan. My daughters go to Japanese schools, and are really rooted in this place. I still feel like a foreigner, but Japan has also come to feel very familiar to me.

CR Tokyo: First as a parent and then as an artist, how did you begin to find community and connection here in Japan?

Amber: My husband teaches science here, so when we came there was a community of foreigners, but I was one of the few women at the time who was not working a day to day job, and was at home as a caregiver. This was a difficult time because I lost my identity as a professional. I really felt that because I wasn’t “making money” in many ways I was invisible. I had to build a new identity for myself from the ground up.

Amber working on a sculpture with her daughter. Photo: Peter Dohrenwend

I started studying Japanese at a nearby community center, then I started to make some Japanese friends through some of the early learning programs for children, and also by going to local adventure playgrounds. There were usually always a few people that spoke English, and would very generously help me navigate difficulties. It has taken a long time to build the patchwork community that I have here, and it’s very special to me. I know and spend time with a very diverse group of people.

In terms of the art community, I am a self-taught artist and I am still trying to find my place in the art world here. I mostly began my art practice in isolation, and until recently didn’t think I would be able to easily connect with artists in Japan because of the language barrier, but I am just now realizing it might be easier than I had thought. I’m excited about meeting people through Cultural ReProducers.

 CR Tokyo: During our conversation today, you said your journey into art practice began after you became a parent.  Can you tell us more about this journey, and how your art practice emerged in the midst of parenting?

Amber: I started working with cardboard as a material because it was easy to collect. I would just ride my bike around on recycling day and find interesting pieces of cardboard that other people in my neighborhood had put out. I didn’t need many tools or much space to work, and we lived in a small apartment. Even now I mostly work on the floor in my tatami room with just a pair of roofing shears and a stapler. It took me about 6 or 7 years of engaging with the material to get enough skill to be able to communicate my ideas.

When my children were very small, I was immersed in their worlds. We spent a lot of time playing together, and it was this time of engaging in the act of play again that really ignited a spark in me. As they grew and played, I played too. The play turned into making things for them, and then making things for myself, which became my current art practice.

CR Tokyo:  How do you manage to find a balance between your art practice and parenting? Do you schedule time to make artworks?

Amber: When my children were younger it was more of a struggle to work. I was mostly just exploring the material, but nevertheless I needed time to concentrate. I remember at one time I got a pair of overalls, and would try to wear them so that everyone in my family knew that when I was wearing the overalls, they couldn’t disturb me... but it didn’t really work. Sometimes there were times when my husband would take the kids to the park, or my children were napping that I could work, but mostly I had to wait until they entered school to have more time. Because I don’t have a studio, I wear headphones and listen to music when I work and my family is present, and sometimes I put the doors on the tatami room so I have more privacy. I sometimes even wear headphones at home without music when I am by myself, because I guess I have conditioned myself to know that’s a time to focus.

Detail from cardboard installation. Photo: Amber Dohrenwend

CR Tokyo: You mentioned that cardboard was a medium that was easy to come across in your area, and also that it was an easy medium to use in a small apartment space. Can you say more about why cardboard has continued to be a key part of your practice?  Has this medium taken on new meanings for you?

Amber: As I have reflected on my practice, I realize that collecting cardboard; foraging for it, makes me feel human. It takes me back to my childhood cutting willow branches and weaving them. I feel more connected to nature in this way than actually going to the park and walking through the forest.  Honestly, it’s a real puzzle to me, and I always wonder why green space doesn’t do more because I feel so intrinsically connected to nature. Collecting and making, and particularly communicating something  sculpturally through the use of a found material, it just feels good to me.

…I also feel very connected to the ephemeral nature of making things with cardboard. I don’t have a desire to make something that would physically outlast, me, in fact just the opposite. I am very devoted to the idea of impermanence, of making things that can be recycled and then made into something else; more paper, soil, staples that can be melted again, art, and on and on. Cardboard is a byproduct of consumerism, so I also think it is particularly interesting to show work in a consumer context, both subverting and promoting it at the same time. That tension feels very interesting to me.

I love that when you hold cardboard and shape it with your hands, you are actually leaving marks on the cardboard with your fingertips, much like when working with clay. This is something I find infinitely interesting; what cardboard looks like in this bent and twisted, softened state. This is the way I like to work with cardboard, and how I hope to keep making discoveries, and playing with this material.
"At one time I got a pair of overalls, and would try to wear them so that everyone in my family knew that when I was wearing the overalls, they couldn’t disturb me... Because I don’t have a studio, I wear headphones and listen to music when I work and my family is present"

CR Tokyo: How did you begin exhibiting your artwork in Japan?
Amber: Before showing my work, all along I was hosting pop-up cardboard play days, and teaching classes about working with cardboard. Before I started my current work, I was an elementary school teacher. Teaching is also about communicating ideas and engaging with people, so I’m sure that teaching people, making things and “playing” with others will always be a part of my practice.

 Through teaching, I got to know the designers Mike and Yuri Abelson who own Postalco, a Tokyo-based business and they really encouraged me. They asked me to do a workshop at their shop and then, later, create an installation for a window display. After that, I started to get some commercial work and the opportunity to do exhibitions and workshops.

Builders of all ages at Adventure Building Camp.
Image credit: Amber Dohrenwend

CR Tokyo:  You run a summer camp in Michigan and you run workshops on using tools for very young children.  Can you tell us more about these projects and practices?

Amber: Adventure Building Camp is a program I run in Michigan in the summer. It came about from spending time working with Gever Tulley who helped start a small educational movement in California, out of his experiences working in Silicon Valley.

His project, Tinkering School, was focused on an approach where children would learn tools in context through tinkering and experimentation rather than a step-by step: learn this, and then you can do that approach that we mostly find in education today. It’s very much process-based. When you need a tool, that’s when you learn how to use it. It was a counterpoint to technology and high stakes education and all of the simulation that kids face in learning, where they don’t actually get the experience to really do things, make things, try things out, make adjustments, and keep working. Tinkering School is a lot about removing the barriers that children face, so they can see for themselves if their ideas work. This is what inspired me to create Adventure Building Camp, which is based on the same philosophies as well as some of the guiding principles from Adventure Playgrounds where I have spent a lot of time here in Tokyo.

Working with kids in this way really surprised me, and also inspired my art practice. Teaching a 6-year-old to use a power drill and start building something out of wood and screws that they sketched, is a truly wonderful experience.

CR Tokyo:  When we talked earlier, it seemed that “tools” themselves have special significance for you.  I wonder if you could say more about this.

Amber: Yes, I love tools, I love really good tools. They are usually at the forefront of overcoming barriers. I could talk about this for a long time, but let me say that, one day when I was taking a shower, I had a kind of light bulb moment when a lot of the things that I had been thinking about and wondering about for many years came together, as a kind of unifying idea, and that idea was about understanding “barriers to making.” That has really become my “question,” even though it’s not really a question. I don’t know if many other people experience this, but I can’t really get away from the fact that most of what I do is always about engaging with this idea of thinking about barriers and how to remove them, both for myself and others, in all kinds of contexts.

So tools have this significance for me because they are often the things that I turn to when confronting barriers. For example, when I work with children, the main barrier they face is getting access to tools and materials because parents think the tools are too dangerous, or the kids can’t handle them. So I give them tools and materials, and I am there, and we slowly and safely work together and amazing things start happening.

This is also what I experienced working with cardboard, developing a relationship with tools so I could communicate my ideas. I think it’s about making space for the ideas and the connections.

CR Tokyo: Have you had any role models for artist-parenting/parent-artisting?

Amber: Images of Ruth Asawa weaving wire sculptures with her children at her feet have definitely been an inspiration to me.

CR Tokyo: What advice would you share with other artists struggling to be both a parent and an artist?

Amber: Parenting is a season of your life.
Do what you can. If you can’t make the art you want to make right now, put as many ideas down, and leave as many bread crumbs as you can for later. Live in the moment with your children and learn to play again.

If you are afraid of losing your career, or your identity, or of facing discrimination in the art world as a parent, all those things, I would say are very real. But, if we can make art we can make a new culture too, and there are more side roads in, and fewer gatekeepers now than there have been in the past. I want to be a part of changing the culture for parents making art and I hope you will too.

Amber introducing her work to the next generation. Photo: Minoru Nomura

Interview: Natsumi Sakamoto

Natsumi Sakamoto in her studio in Glasgow, UK

Natsumi Sakamoto is an artist exploring the relationships between memory, history, and mythology through a range of media including video installation, painting, and animation. Her work has been exhibited in London, Tokyo, Seoul and beyond - including shows at PlaceMAK, Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, and the 13th Gunma Biennale for Young Artists. Sakamoto is also a member of the feminism-focused artist collective Back and Forth Collective. 

This interview is the first in a brand new series from Cultural ReProducers Tokyo, thoughtfully conducted and translated by artist, art researcher, curator, and CR Tokyo organizer Catherine Harrington. These conversations explore some of the culturally-specific challenges of working as an artist-parent in Japan, and the fundamental questions we are all working to sort out together.


Catherine Harrington (CR Tokyo): To start, tell us a bit about you and your son. 

Natsumi Sakamoto: I’m an artist, mainly working with multi media. Focusing on untold histories such as individual’s and women’s histories, and everyday customs and beliefs, my aim is to examine the possibility of preserving the ephemeral, as a way to recover a loss. One of the documentary films I made in 2014 took me to places in Japan and the UK that were connected with my grandmother’s significant, personal memories.  I have been developing this project in my more recent work, and in 2019 I am going to start a new project in Scotland about Scottish superstitions and witch hunts.

My son’s now four years old and he’s very active and inquisitive - curious about everything.  Now, at his age, he asks why, why about everything. That was something I was really looking forward to. I wanted to answer those questions, even if they are sometimes silly questions, or really huge questions. For example he asks, “Why do you see the moon everyday?” and I try to be respectful to him as a person and I try to answer everything, even the little questions.  Sometimes I need to Google them.  He’s opened up a new world for me and made me more curious. Life has become richer than before, I would say. On the other hand, he’s stubborn.  He doesn’t easily change his opinions.

 
CH: What kind of identity shift did you experience when you first became an artist-parent?

NS: I didn’t really have a clear shift because I was working all the time.  When I came back to Japan from the UK, I was pregnant and I really wanted a chance to network and show my work again in Japan. I kind of knew that it is going to be difficult to do an exhibition for maybe another year once our little one had arrived. So I thought I should plan something in advance, and decided to curate a group show just before the baby arrived. That was my first experience organizing an exhibition by myself – from getting the funding to finding a venue, and it took over a year and a half. The exhibition title was Everyday Fiction, and included work by artists from Japan and the UK dealing with two different worlds: reality and fiction, and the flexible boundaries between them.

I applied for several open calls and funding applications a few months after the baby was born - I was trying to keep on doing as much as I could in my spare time such as during the baby’s nap times. It was very tough! I probably did that purposely so as not to make a clear transition point between being an artist and being an artist-parent. It was thanks to support from my parents, my partner, my friends, and temporary childcare that I was able to do it. 

I tried not to change my everyday schedule and attitude to life.  You physically change and you psychologically feel that you have to be a good mother. It’s not like I became someone else, but more like I have a mother-identity and my artist-identity, and I shift between them, instead of trying to combine both. So, I don’t think about art when I spend time with my son; I become just a mother.  If I can switch easily between these two identities in a given moment, I can enjoy them. But sometimes it doesn't work and it becomes a bit of a mess. Exhibition time is very stressful because sometimes the switch doesn't work, and I’m always thinking about art while I’m talking to my son.

Natsumi Sakamoto, still from Rowan Wards off Witches, 2019

CH: With that in mind, do you feel that parenthood changed your art practice in some way?


NS:  Before becoming a mother, my art practice was all about me and the environment around me. But after becoming a mother, I started to see the structure of society and the mother’s position in society. I guess I started to be interested in feminism more, and began to think about these questions through my art practice. I wouldn’t have been able to think this way without the experience of being physically incapable of certain things while being pregnant and while looking after a small child. You suddenly become so powerless in society. This was probably my first experience of becoming seriously aware of gender equality issues in real life.

In that first year I had this very concentrated time of being with my son twenty-four hours a day. I went to parks or the jidokan* with my son almost every day. It was a happy time, but when I saw other parents in those places, I started to become more aware of this unequal situation.

Note: *Jidokan(s) 児童館 and hiroba(s) 広場 are playgroups or play spaces where children and parents can play or socialize with other children and parents.  These spaces or groups can also involve organized singing or play activities.

At jidokan, I rarely saw fathers and mostly saw mothers, because the fathers were working on weekdays. Most of the mothers I met were unable to get a place for their child at a nursery. We talked with each other about how difficult it is to get a place in a nursery, how to make a successful application, and how hopeless our future careers would be if we couldn’t get a full-time nursery place for another few years. I actually met a mother who was thinking of a ‘temporary divorce’ from her partner so she could change her condition from ‘married’ to ‘single mother’ and strengthen her nursery application. The situation is so desperate. I hardly ever met fathers who had taken paternity leave, and whose partner had gone straight back to work after their child’s birth.

I was disappointed and angry about this situation. Japan has a declining birthrate, which is a big social problem, and the Japanese government encourages couples to have children as well as encouraging women to work more to help with economic growth. This is a contradiction: how can you encourage women to work without offering child care? There were many women who felt the same at this time and took part in protests. All this made me really aware of the issue of gender inequality. I felt I should do something – so I started to work with a few of my artist friends as part of a group we call the Back and Forth Collective.

CH:  Yes! The practice of the Back and Forth Collective is really important and valuable, and I hope you can continue to pursue this project.  When did you form the Back and Forth Collective?

NS: We met at a workshop called Feminism for Everyone at Kosaten* in Tokyo around two years ago. I met Asako Taki and Mei Homma there. We all graduated from the same art university in London, but at different times. So we had known each other, but this was the first time we actually met altogether. We hit it off at that meeting, and started to talk about working as a collective.

Note: Kosaten* is an intersectional community space in Tokyo. Events such as discussions, conversations and workshops are held there with people from different backgrounds, and for instance; of different nationalities, ethnic identities, religions, sexualities, genders and (dis)abilities.


The core members are three artists at the moment, but we often collaborate with different artists and researchers. Each artist has a different area of interest but our common interest is feminism, so we started by working on this topic together. We’ve held workshops, exhibitions, and had a meeting with invited female artists. Last summer we had an exhibition at Tokyo Metropolitan Museum called Quiet Dialogue – Invisible Existences and Us.  Artists from Japan, Austria, Turkey and Indonesia showed work responding to the theme. The topics explored included Japanese women’s suffrage, the history of home economics, immigrants and minority ethnic groups, witch hunts, the issue of female labor and sex trafficking in East and South East Asia including Japanese girls serving as sex workers called Karayuki-san, and so on. To show the wide range of each artists’ research, we made a library in the exhibition space, which also functioned as an open space to talk.

If I didn’t have that intensive first year as a mother, I might not have joined.  I’m not sure how to put this, but I think that experience I had has given me stronger opinions about solving these problems.

 filming on the Isle of Bute, UK

CH: Did your experience with the art community shift when you became an artist-parent?  What kind of changes would you like to see in the art world?

NS: Tokyo is quite big and there are many galleries and museums. It’s also an expensive place to live, so it is not easy for artists to have a studio in the city. I always feel that working in a local artists community has a good energy, with a lot of encouragement and exchange of ideas. But there are a lot of artists like me, working with digital media or small-scale work, who work from home. There are groups organizing events and meetings for artists and curators such as artist talks, screenings or discussions, and reading events. I met quite a few people through those events, and we often ended up doing projects together.

There is a certain difficulty to taking kids to art events. I’ve never tried. I would probably leave the room every time he gets fussy or cries. I just always think, “oh, I have to find somebody to look after my son.” My partner is very helpful and supportive with what I want to do, and always looks after my son so well. I need that help. But I feel bad every time I do this.

There are some changes recently: I’ve seen more and more baby-friendly event descriptions, including childcare services, on museum websites etc. This is a great improvement, but it is still not enough at all. If I go to events in the evening, everyone always asks me “What is your son doing?  Who is looking after your son?” I’m just thinking, if any fathers go to these events, probably not everybody is going to ask them this.  Probably they think that the mother is looking after their child.

Natsumi Sakamoto, still from unforgettable landscape (ROWAN TREE), 2014

CH: Have you had any role models for artist-parenting?


NS: I don’t think so, no, because those stories are quite hidden, I don't know anybody personally.  Most of the successful female-artists I know are either single or they don't have a child.  Maybe the situation is different in the UK or other countries, so I hope I can meet some more artist-parents there.


CH: One issue that has been raised a lot in Japan – which is also a wider issue - is that of childcare. You had that first year when you were with your son for 24 hours a day.  After that, did you continue working alongside your son at home, or did you use childcare?  What was the next step?

NS: The first year I didn't get childcare, so I had to wait another year.  From two years old, he went to nursery. He goes five days a week, so I could work on my art as well as working at my part-time job. I became more financially stable and I have a lot more freedom now than in the first two years.

In Japan you can only apply for the nursery if you have a job. It’s very competitive. So I was teaching two days a week. For those two days [before getting a nursery place], my mum helped out by looking after my son. That was such a big help. I put my condition down as freelance artist, editor, teacher and translator, working two days outside, and three days at home. I made a schedule with all the details such as who I work with, what kind of project it is, and where the funding comes from.

Basically I tried to combine all the types of ‘work’ I do – no matter if it’s paid or not – to fill up my working schedule. Other mothers were working full time, five days a week, and more than 40 hours a day. I needed to make my schedule equivalent to this, even though my work schedule isn’t a fixed one. The reality is that I often worked in the middle of the night and between nap times, so it was almost impossible to count how many hours I actually worked.


CH: So you found another way to apply for a nursery place ‘as an artist’?


NS: Yeah, I was trying to find a solution. But I know it is not easy for everyone – another artist-mother friend gave up applying to nursery. She was making her artwork at home every day when she had time, and didn’t have a part-time job. She was a full-time mother-artist. The reality is that an application from someone working from home or as self-employed isn’t as strong as one made by a full-time company employee. So for her, there was almost no hope of getting a nursery place. From the government’s perspective, the occupation ‘artist’ isn’t as reliable as other occupations. I presume they don’t want to provide childcare for people who don’t make money, so it might be a bit different if an artist is only working on commissions. But the reality is that not a lot of artists actually make their living from only art!

Under these circumstances, being an artist-mother is very difficult in many ways, and it makes us feel guilty to work on our artwork. And when the baby is small, you have so much housework to do … there’s so much invisible labour that needs to be done. 

CH: This issue of what counts as labour and how different forms of labour are perceived is directly related to being an artist-parent in the art world.  And with all this invisible labour to deal with - how did you find time for your practice? What was your strategy in those first two years?


NS: Before getting nursery care five days a week, I just had no time.  But I had this group show, so I had to make time.  So I got up super early in the morning every day.  Morning was the best time for me, before the baby woke up. If anyone else wakes up then a mess appears, or some other work - it becomes difficult to keep working or doing.  So I decided to wake up really early in morning, sometimes 4am, in the dark, and I just had to make a deadline for every little thing.  For example, “this writing has to be done in the next hour”, or something like that.  I made a super tight schedule.  And then when the baby cries I have to go and pick him up.  I’m like an athlete… running.

Natsumi Sakamoto, The Interview with a Witch, 2019.  Installation view at Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum

CH: So how did you deal with sleep deprivation?


NS: Yeah, I can’t remember.  I think I went to sleep early with my child.  I often used social networks, just to show or prove that I’d done something. At the time I felt I was invisible in society.  I couldn't go to see my friends because I had to be in the house.  I wanted to connect to somebody.  As an everyday routine, I would make one small drawing and post it to Instagram – like a diary – it works, you see the progress every day.  You make a little bit day by day.

CH: I recently read about a parent and child- friendly studio residency at the Washington Project for the Arts in the US, where the children can stay in the studio while the parents work.  Would this kind of initiative be helpful here?  If this kind of studio programme existed near you, would you want to be part of it?


NS: A studio, with childcare? It sounds interesting. But I do wonder whether they have a strong barrier between the kids’ area and the parents’ area. I can imagine my son often coming to interrupt me... so, personally, I’m not confident that I could concentrate on my work when my kid is with me. It is a contradiction, because I totally agree with this idea of making your workplace more accessible to kids, but then, I know how difficult the reality would be.

Not only workplaces, but public spaces like museums or theaters still have a strong separation between kids and adults, and the unspoken rule is that kids shouldn't disturb the adult’s world. Having a separation is definitely the most productive and less stressful way for adults. For example, I am always nervous when I take my son to the museum. He loves to make noise in a quiet space, so the other people’s evil eyes towards me make me really sad and upset. I can totally understand what they feel, so my feeling is complicated. I feel angry and I also feel bad to have disturbed the other people at the same time. This situation is probably more particular to Japan than the UK.

I think it’s definitely worth trying these kinds of new ideas – otherwise the situation is never going to change.

Note: At the time of this interview Natsumi Sakamoto was based in Tokyo, Japan.  She is now based in Glasgow, Scotland.